African farmers gathered to discuss agroecology in Zimbabwe
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- Published on Tuesday, 14 June 2011 15:59
(Masvingo, 13 June, 2011) – Zimbabwean farmers’ organization are hosting a training meeting on agroecology , an encounter organized by La Via Campesina (LVC) Africa in Masvingo province in Zimbabwe, from June 13 to 19. The training workshop brings together LVC member organizations in the continent, key allies including academics, NGOs, social science practioners, and small-scale farmers.
More than 50 participants, from 10 African Countries, as well as visitors from Latin America and Asia, are gathering in Masvingo to discuss and share experiences on agroecology and sustainable peasant agriculture, and organic farming and conservation agriculture practices, that keep build on local knowledge and traditional skills to work the land and produce food ecologically.
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Sri Lanka Declaration: Asian Agroecology Encounter
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- Published on Wednesday, 02 June 2010 11:51
Colombo, Sri Lanka, 18-22 May 2010
The Via Campesina (LVC) organised an Asian Agroecology Encounter from 18 to 22 May, 2010, hosted by the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR) at the Community Education Centre (CEC), in Colombo, Sri Lanka. This was attended by practitioners, promoters and trainers of sustainable agriculture from LVC organizations in eight countries in East Asia, South East Asia and South Asia.
The encounter was aimed at strengthening the solidarity and farmer-to-farmer exchange among the agroecology movements in LVC in Asia, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of different sustainable farming methods and building a campaign for a debt free and poison free agroecology movement in the region with the support and guidance of the La Via Campesina. The encounter was aimed toward putting the principles of food sovereignty in practice, which is fundamental for us in La Via Campesina, through sustainable agriculture practices. At the Encounter the participants developed regional work plans to support the promotion of agroecology, sustainable agriculture and natural farming among the member families of La Via Campesina organizations in Asia.
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Organic Farming, Indonesia
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- Published on Wednesday, 21 October 2009 06:29
The SPI, as I mentioned below, has succeeded through struggle and unity in taking 1 million hectares of land from companies and government entities, much of it in fact reclaimed after it was stolen from peasant farmers during the years of the Suharto regime.
Now, like the Movimento dos Sem Terra in Brazil, they are working to convince peasant farmers to go organic. In July, I went from Jakarta to the coastal city of Padang, on the island of Sumatra, and from there to Nagari, where the SPI have an organic farming school. I did not have my trusty interpreter Adi with me on this trip, relying instead on Rustam, an SPI leader from nearby West Pasamant. A tall rangy fellow, with a square jaw and jokey manner, Rustam had participated in a lengthy and violent struggle there to reclaim land taken by a palm-oil company, one that resulted in the death of one Union member and the imprisonment of many others. His command of English, while eccentric and rather endearingly — if confusingly, at times – informal, was my path to communication with his Mingabau-speaking comrades.
Proposals for family farm based, sustainable agriculture
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- Published on Monday, 13 February 2006 07:00
Published at the occasion of the WSSD summit in Johannesburg 2002
August, 2002
Introduction
World-wide, the prevailing neo-liberal economic system has been the primary cause of the increasing impoverishment and the displacement of farmers and rural peoples everywhere. It is responsible for the increasing degradation of nature, including the land, water, plants, animals and natural resources, having put all these vital resources under centralized systems of production, procurement and distribution within the frame of a global market oriented system. The international ’agrifood sector’ is largely controlled by transnational corporations and the governments that actively support or passively accept the market ideology as the principle on which to base all of agriculture.